Growing up in Oregon in the public school system meant that starting in middle school, we were constantly bombarded with certain food and health messages. In a variety of classes from Health class to Accelerated Language Arts to AP Human Geography, I was constantly told about the corruption of the agricultural industry, the dangers of genetically modified food, and how McDonald’s might as well have been Satan incarnate. I can’t really claim all the teachers bought into the messages, but it was a recurring part of the curriculum for some reason.
In one Health class, I remember watching the documentary Supersize Me. In it, a guy decides to eat only McDonalds for every meal for a month and if they ask him to “supersize” his meal, he has to do it. The documentary explores his weight gain, lethargy, and consistent throwing up. It’s all a PSA that fast food is bad for you. Turns out--and I’m sure no one saw this coming--it’s not good to eat McDonald’s all the time for every meal. I know, who would have thunk! But all the need to tell us that so much food is bad for you just revealed that whoever made it a part of the curriculum thought America didn’t realize they were eating so poorly.
And, I mean, they are probably right.
I won’t bore you with facts about food consumption and overeating and obesity. You can look up those grim statistics yourself. But our problem isn’t just food. It’s over-consumption. We humans, especially in first-world countries, are prone to overdo it. We over-buy, over-use, and, yes, over-eat.
Of course, “gluttony” stars as one of the classic Seven Deadly Sins. We almost always associate it with food. However, Christians throughout the centuries have understood that it has an expanded definition referring to any desire for overindulgence—though food was still the primary example. As Thomas Aquinas explained in the Summa Theologica, the problem isn’t so much about the eating of much food as it is the desire for so much food. He points out that anything that distracts us from God, even a great appetite, can be a mortal sin.
So, uh, do you think that perhaps our society’s obsession with overindulgence is in any way distracting us from God?
I do.
Our shelves are lined with a myriad of options, most of them specifically designed for us to crave even more. We are bombarded with ads that say “buy, buy” and “act now, act now.” Also, I literally have students look at me funny if they see I’ve been wearing the same shoes to school over and over as they expect people to own multiple pairs of shoes that rotate out. And Christmas is coming—it’s almost time for us to see commercials where spouses get each other new cars for Christmas apparently without consulting the other in the major financial decision.
Overindulgence is now the default. It’s a way of life. Nowadays “minimalism” is a counter-cultural lifestyle when it used to be necessary for survival.
How can we escape all the chaos of overindulgence?
Well if the problem of gluttony is a matter of “over desire” then we must start with taming our desires.
The first part of the fourth chapter of James addresses this problem. He begins by explaining what appears to be a recurring issue with the audience:"
“What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.”
-James 4:1-3
James’ solution is to focus less on yourself and more on God. We must be humble.
Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.
-James 4:7-10
I’ve always said the Christian life is paddling upstream. Going with the flow and letting go of our natural desires is certainly easier. But faith takes effort. To go against the stream means we cultivate one of my least favorite fruits of the spirit: self-control.
That’s the antidote. When the claws of indulgence threaten to snatch us up and get us off track from God, our response must be to run full speed ahead to God, asking God to cultivate in us self-control.
Being around 11-year-olds all day who have little awareness and impulse control, I understand it’s hard to stop, drop, and think. Saying “no” to more is always a Herculean feat. Yet I also see up close and personal how much indulgence wrecks us when we do the first thing that pops into our head or when we focus so much on our craving. Indulgence makes us slaves to whatever we are indulgencing in.
Freedom, instead, is in embracing Christ. Theologian Stanley Hauerwas writes in A Community of Character that “it is the Christian belief that true freedom comes by learning to be appropriately dependent, that is, to trust the one who wills to have us as his own and who wills the final good of all.” Through self-control and humbling ourselves before God can we finally become who we are made to be.
Eating McDonald’s for every meal won’t satisfy our body because it’s too much junk and not enough good stuff. Similarly, all kinds of indulgences overload us with what we don’t need at the expense of what we do need. Our desire for MORE is too much of a “sin-waiting-to-happen.” It clouds our senses so we don’t see what God is doing in our lives.
Romans 12:2 reminds us that knowing God’s will is a result of not “going with the flow.” Paul writes: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” Since gluttony and indulgence are a big part of the pattern of the world, they are something we must actively resist if we are going to discover God’s gifts for us in our time on earth. It’s the only way to see with God’s eyes.
In the end, More is less. And Less is more.
Question of the Week
Leave your answer in the comment section below or reply to this email.
In what ways do you resist a tendency toward overindulgence?
My “Goings On”
I’m working on revising my book Who We Are for the second—expanded!—edition.
Chew and swallow,
Jake Doberenz
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